Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/189

 *holic extract, because the natural carbonate of soda of animal matter may be separated in that manner.

II.—Of the Action of the fixed Alkalis, and the Symptoms they cause in Man.

The action of the two fixed alkalis and their carbonates on the animal system is so nearly the same, that the facts which have been ascertained in respect to one of them will apply to all the rest. The operation of potass and its carbonate has been carefully investigated by Professor Orfila, and by M. Bretonneau of Tours.

When caustic potass is injected in minute portions into the veins, it instantly coagulates the blood. Five grains, according to Orfila, will in this way kill a dog in two minutes. But when small doses either of potash itself, or its carbonate, or indeed any of its salts are used, Mr. Blake found, that without coagulating the blood, they arrested the action of the heart in ten seconds, if injected into the jugular vein; and that when they were injected into the carotid artery, they occasioned in four seconds signs of great obstruction in the capillary circulation, and arrestment of the heart's action in thirty-five minutes, through means of this effect. Next to the salts of baryta he thought the potash salts the most powerful on the heart's action of all those he tried. When introduced into the stomach potash acts powerfully as an irritant, and generally corrodes the coats of that organ. Thirty-two grains given by Orfila to a dog caused pain in the gullet, violent vomiting, much anguish, restlessness, and death on the third day. On dissection he found the inner coat of the gullet and stomach black and red; and near the pylorus there was a perforation three-quarters of an inch wide, and surrounded by a hard, elevated margin. The observations of Bretonneau are in some respects different. When potass was swallowed by dogs in the dose of 40 grains, he found that the animals, after suffering for some time from violent vomiting, always died sooner or later of wasting and exhaustion; and that the action of the poison was confined chiefly to the gullet, which was extensively destroyed and ulcerated on its inner surface. But when the gullet was defended by the potass being passed at once into the stomach in a caustic holder, larger doses, even several times repeated, did not prove fatal. The usual violent symptoms of irritation prevailed for two or three days; but on these subsiding, the animals rapidly recovered their appetite and playfulness, appearing in fact to be restored to perfect health. Yet there could be no doubt that the stomach all the while was severely injured; for in some of the animals, which were strangled for the sake of examination several weeks after they took the poison, the villous coat was found extensively removed, and even the muscular and